She Sings
by coolmarauders
Summary: Mercilessly teased, doomed to never live a life of glamour, Ann has always had something in her day to ruin it. Inspired by the quote 'I wonder how many times a day she dies a little.' By Prongs, not a one shot.
1. Something New

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything from _A Great and Terrible Beauty_.

**Author's Note:** Okay, I'm back! Yay! Well this fic will be a collection of one-shots about Ann's life before _A Great and Terrible Beauty _and after _Rebel Angels_. It will be written in first person, present-tense form. Please review! I want to know what you think of it and what you think my next chapter should be on.

* * *

It is my first day at this imposing castle of a school. I know that I will not be welcome. I am a scholarship girl, a poor girl given enough pity to attend school. To make matters worse, I know I am not great beauty.

It is so hard not to mitigate my life when these things I read-these stories of girls like me- give me hope. The books tell me that if I am good enough, that I if I am kind and graceful and charming, some Prince Charming will come to save me. Sometimes I dream that I am a beautiful princess, locked away in a forbidding tower, just waiting for someone handsome to rescue me and sweep me off my delicately shoed feet.

"Miss Bradshaw," a rather large maid beckons me. "I am Brigid."

"How do you do?" I ask politely, hoping to give the right impression.

There is no answer. This makes me feel so much better, knowing that not even the house-keeper can be bothered to talk to a _scholarship girl_. I cannot help but dwell on that fact- it keeps springing up in my mind.

"The Missus will take you in soon," she tells me me. I nod.

Since there is no one here to accompany me, I wait alone. I hear the loud giggling of a group of girls coming up the stairs. They come racing up, red-cheeked and breathless. They are a few years younger than my age of twelve, possibly nine years old.

"Who are _you_?" one of them inquires boldly, staring openly at my shabby dress and small suitcase.

"Ann Bradshaw," I tell them quietly.

"Why is your dress so ugly?" another girl asks. I feel a blush work my way into my cheeks and wish it would fade away quickly. If only my cousin would have given me a suitable dress for traveling!

"It is what m-m-my cousin gave me," I say. That bloody stutter has worked its way into my speech once again. I speak little to avoid letting it out of the cage. I do not feel like informing them that I have been given a scholarship, not when they will spread it around to all of the girls. I would rather tell them myself- face the danger knowing what I have come to.

"Oh," they giggle and skip away, whispering behind their hands. One of them looks back at me and whips her head back around to gossip more with her friends.

How long is the Headmistress going to take? It seems like it has been at least an hour since Brigid the housekeeper has left me here.

I might as well occupy my mind with _something_ while I am waiting.

Once there was a beautiful poor girl that was mercilessly teased by all of her classmates. I start a story in my head, but before I can get any further, the door opens and a voice commands "Enter."

Feeling slightly uneasy, I obey.

"Hello, Miss Bradshaw," the woman says. She is heavy-set, with stern features. "I am Mrs. Nightwing. I trust your journey was pleasant?"

"Yes, Mrs. Nightwing," I answer politely. Thank goodness my stammer has not worked in again. I shall have to work on control of it.

"Miss Bradshaw, here you will learn French, art, dancing, and music," Mrs. Nightwing informs me. Music! I suppose my face must have brightened, because the corners of her lips have an upward turn to them now. "Unfortunately, because of your…" she searches for the proper word to describe my situation of being poor, "financial situation, we cannot offer you the best room. You will be granted the same furniture in your room as the other pupils."

She waits for me to say something. I rack my mind for something, anything, to reply.

"Thank you." How creative of me. The corners of her mouth are back into their straight-line position.

"I shall show you your room and your uniform now. Follow me," she instructs. I comply, as always. Now it will be more important than ever; no one will want a governess that does not obey the rules.

We walk briskly through many halls, all lined with the same doors, the same carpet. As we pass through the third floor corridor, she points out the class pictures. I shall be in one of those some day, a plain girl alongside glowing beauties.

Mrs. Nightwing stops abruptly and I nearly knock into her.

"This is your room," she tells me. Her face is solemn; no sympathy for a poor new girl is shown.

I walk through the door and into my new home. It seems to be a forgotten room; it hangs off the edge of the building. There are two beds- am I to have a roommate?

"The extra bed is for any other of your age that comes," Mrs. Nightwing clarifies, "For now you have this room to yourself."

I suppose that is a small mercy. The desk has been water stained, and one of the beds is directly under a precipitous eave that could possibly do injury, if the one in the bed were to sit up to quickly.

"The view is marvelous," she tries to make things a little better for me. I walk over to the window and open the shutters. She was right; it is marvelous. It will be a good place for me to sit and read my books. That reminds me: I need to start my new story; my cousin bought it for me as a going-away present- a bribe of sorts, as I think of it.

"Your uniform is in here. Please try it on so I can see if adjustments need to be made," the Headmistress orders. I open up the door to the wardrobe and see a white skirt; a white blouse with lace insets, hooked and laced white boots, and a hooded dark blue velvet cape. I run my hand over the soft fabric, wondering if it will fit me.

"Please excuse me," I say meekly and go behind a screen to change. Mrs. Nightwing does not move; it's rather rude of her.

The clothes fit now, but in the next year or so, I will have to get a new one; I seem to growing _out_ not _up_ and it worries me. Perhaps I should eat less.

I walk out behind the screen and in front of the imposing figure that will be a mother of sorts for the next long years of my life.

"Good," she says briskly, "We will supply new clothes if you should ever outgrow your current ones."

"Thank you," I say once again.

"I will lead you down to the main hall; the girls are having free time in there. There are quite a few girls in cross," Mrs. Nightwing supplies in an attempt to be helpful, "There is a Miss Pippa, Miss Cecily, Miss Elizabeth, Miss Martha, and Miss Felicity Worthington." She adds the last name rather suddenly, seeing as she never did for the other girls. _Worthington…Worthington… Admiral Worthington?  
_

"The daughter of Admiral Worthington?" I gasp. Admiral Worthington is famous throughout England.

"The very same." She presses her lips together a bit, making the wrinkles seem sharper.

We walk in awkward silence- at least for me. I do not like talking to adults; they always look down on me for being poor.

"Here we are," she says. I take a look at the vast hall, taking it all in slowly. There is a cluster of four great pillars in the middle of the room- interesting decoration. Now I scan the girls, looking for someone, anyone who looks like they might be in my position.

"Girls!" Mrs. Nightwing claps her hands for attention. "We have a new girl here today, Miss Ann Bradshaw." At first I think that she is not going to say it; she is not going to announce my situation to everyone. But of course, she has to ruin everything. One final hesitation and then, "A scholarship student."

What looks of curiosity that I had been feeling now turn to looks of scorn. I here a muted giggle and look at a small group of girls gossiping to each other. They look to be about my age- they must be the girls Mrs. Nightwing was talking about. I stare quite plainly at them and my breath catches in my throat for a moment. There is a girl of unsurpassed beauty there- the kind I wish I could be. Her skin is perfect: ivory pale with no blemishes. Chestnut ringlets hang around her face. She turns to look at me, with a smirk on her face and I see her lovely violet eyes. She turns back, suppressing a laugh and I see the girl next to her. Her white-blonde hair seems a bit wild, though tame at the same time. She laughs loud and long at something the perfect beauty has said and I instantly know that she is the leader of the group.

"Those are the girls in your class," Mrs. Nightwing points out the obvious. She pushes me down to them, though I wish I could bolt back to my forgotten room.

"This is Miss Bradshaw," she says again when we have reached them. The floor is quite interesting from here- so much more interesting than their faces. I have never seen my shoes in such detail either.

I hear another snicker and immediately blush again. Footsteps echo around me and I realize that Mrs. Nightwing has left me alone.

"H-h-hello," I whisper.

"H-h-how do you do, Miss _Bradshaw_," a smoky voice says. I look up and see that it was the blonde, the leader. My throat aches from the cruelness of her imitation of my stutter- and I haven't even done anything to make her mock me.

A squeak comes out from my throat, but nothing else.

"Didn't you hear us, Mademoiselle _Scholarship_?" she inquires, putting a thin mask of politeness over a taunt.

"V-v-very well, M-miss…" I answer softly, not trusting myself to look at them yet. This awful stammer is making a fool out of me.

"Worthington," she says proudly. "This is Pippa, Cecily, Martha, and Elizabeth." She points to each of them in turn and they each give me a half-smile, half-sneer. I understand now that the beauty is Pippa.

"You should do well to stay out of our way," Pippa threatens. "People of _your_ class shouldn't be in the same world as _us_." I feel my eyes scratch and burn but force myself to keep control. I cannot cry in front of them.

"Please excuse me, Miss Worthington." I only say her name, for it is the only one I know. I try to stumble away, but they do not let me yet.

"You forgot me," Pippa says cruelly. "You must have meant to add Miss Cross."

"And me," Cecily adds, though she does not say her last name.

I rush away without answering, because I know that the tears are going to spill out at any minute. I sweep by Mrs. Nightwing, blabbering something about being tired from traveling. I race up to my room and flop on my bed. The sobs come thick and fast and soon I am gasping trying to get air back into my watery lungs.

What a perfect start to my new life. Desperate to do anything to take away the pain, I spy my scissors from my bag. I savagely take them out and make a little scratch in my wrist. The xpain sends more tears in my eyes, but in a way, it feels good- I feel something new.


	2. Wedding

**Disclaimer: **I don't own anything from A Great and Terrible Beauty or Rebel Angels.

**Author's Note: **Long time, no update! Here's another episode from Ann's life, taking place after Rebel Angels. Concrit is greatly appreciated! Also, this one is shorter, just because… Um. Okay, I don't have a real reason why it is shorter, it just is.

* * *

I look up at Gemma in wonder, thinking about how beautiful she looks today. I am standing with the rest of the crowd, watching her walk slowly down the isle to return to her husband-to-be.

She spies me among the crowd – I _am_ sitting very close to the front – and gives me a small smile. I smile back gently, though I wish it could be me in the white dress and veil. Her dress is beautiful; it must have been expensive. The ivory gown is richly embroidered with designs of flowers and the train in the back sweeps along behind her, marking her last steps as an unmarried woman.

Gemma reaches the priest and they begin the marriage rites. I must admit that my attention wanders at this point, though it is the most important. I wish it were me up there, standing next to Tom. I expect that he has forgotten about me now, the girl that lied to him and to everyone just to make it seem like she had money. I wish I could be that girl, except without the lies. I wonder if Tom is here today – I haven't noticed him among the crowd. I look about, trying to spy the back of a head that looks like the back of his head. At the moment I do not see him, but I _do_ see Felicity.

I am rather surprised that she is here today. She and Gemma had a sort of a falling out right as we left Spence. They never really were friends, I suppose. I don't even know why Felicity became friends with her in the first place, they never told me. There must have _something_, though. They couldn't have just been friends because Fee felt like it. She used to be at my level – that is, the lowest level in Spence.

"I do." I hear Gemma's voice say this and I look up again, pretending that I have been listening the whole time. I close my eyes for a moment, picturing that Indian boy with her – Kartik; I think his name was – instead of the groom that is really with her. But that dream is dead. It died when he did.

Gemma and her new husband walk back down the isle. I can see that her smile isn't as bright as it was when she was walking to him. At that point she could have still backed out. Now there is no going back. She is married, and soon she will have children, maybe even a daughter, to carry on in the realms.

I realize that not once have I looked at the groom in all this. He looks the same as he did before, except maybe a little happier. He should be happy, finally having Gemma as a wife. I wonder if Gemma really does have that brooch now; she does own the things that he does now.

I sigh, tears filling my eyes. I whisper Gemma's new name once, feeling it roll in my mouth. It feels so different. She's not Gemma Doyle anymore. She's Gemma Middleton.


	3. Releasing Love

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything from A Great and Terrible Beauty or Rebel Angels.

**Author's Note:** The third chapter! Enjoy and leave concrit! **_Warning:_** It's femmeslash.

* * *

I couldn't help thinking about her in a way that was not quite appropriate. She was – I must remind myself that she is no longer so lovely – her skin, her hair, her eyes. Everything about her oozed exquisiteness and beauty. Everything she touched, it seemed, to glow a little brighter, to try to compare next to her, though they never would be able to. I was one of the few who does not even dare to try, because I knew that I would never match her in beauty, no matter how hard I tried.

When Felicity told us about the "Sapphos" in the caves, it struck a fear deep within me. They all talked about it like it was so scandalous, so taboo and wrong. What if they knew that one of their own felt like a Sappho at some point, even before she knew what the official word was for it? Would they shun me even more than they already did? I would be a scholarship girl, an ugly girl, and to top it all off, a girl who desires the love of another girl.

I was not quite sure if I desired her actual love, or if I just wanted her recognition. She was not the only one I loved; Tom is proof of that. So perhaps I was not just one who loves girls, and maybe that would have lessened my humiliation to some degree.

But Pippa was my first love. She appeared in my dreams, sometimes. Before Gemma came, she would appear in my dreams nearly all the time. Her dream-lips would lower close to mine, fluttering before they actual came together in a simple, sweet kiss, and her violet eyes would close. We would kiss, softly and quietly at first, but then hard and passionate, filled with ardor. I would wake up from these dreams tired and aching and desiring something in my life. Sometimes the urge would come over me to rise up from my bed and creep down the hall and up to the stairs, to the room that she shared with Felicity. I could picture myself letting in the thin ray of light from my candle on her face, just to gaze upon the face of her beauty. I would see her lying there, her ivory skin blending in with our thin nightgowns that we were forced to wear. I could close my eyes and know exactly what she would look like in that nightgown, for I had stared at her so many times that her image seemed stamped permanently in my mind. Then I would realize that if I did that, I would surely be thrown out of Spence, and I would never amount to anything – or to something even less than a governess, something even lower in society, more shunned, and talked about even less. I would go back to sleep, and there she would be again, suspended in my dreams.

When she died, I not only mourned the loss of a beautiful young woman and a great friend, but also the death of a first love. She was never going to come back, except for in my dreams. And even then, she kept appearing as she did in the coffin at her funeral: cold and stiff, with her hair fanned out around her. I saw myself throw a single rose into her grave, with tears rolling down my pudgy cheeks. I saw Mr. Bumble planting a short kiss on her cheek, a kiss that should have been my kiss.

In the realms, my unrequited love was once again ignited. On the Gorgon, when she told me that she would protect me, I believed her. When she kissed my cheek, I had to restrain myself from reaching up to touch the very spot where her rosy lips had touched my face. I wanted to kiss her back, only fiercer and on her actual lips. When I was with her, I thought that I was in heaven and never wished to leave. What more could I want? I had my love, my first friend, and someone else that I was not quite sure of, but that someone was a person that I would have liked to count as a friend. As long as Pippa was there, I felt no sadness, no sorrow. Only happiness. That is, until after the binding of the magic. I felt my love drain away as I saw her there, and as I heard her cry as she ran to the Winterlands. She looked beast-like, a monster that a child would have hidden under her bed. Her pointed teeth looked ferocious; those milky blue-white eyes were ravenous, not gorgeous. The crown of flowers on her head seemed a mockery of her frightening appearance. In her honor, I had a second funeral, a private funeral that was only attended by myself. I sobbed as I mourned her once again. But as my tears dried and stung my lips, I realized that I could not mourn her forever. She was gone now, even more than when she had first died. Now she seemed truly dead, though she still lived in the realms. Pippa was not one of us now, as much as I tried to tell myself that she could change, that she would be "fixed" and helped somehow. It just would not happen.

In a way, releasing my pent-up love drained me of my some of my fears. There was no one to love that I could not possible love anymore. There would be no anxiety over people discovering my most hidden secrets, no pangs of unrequited love anymore. There would just be us three – Gemma, Felicity, and myself – once again, bonded together even more than I thought could be possible. And though we were close, I somehow knew that there was something I was missing, some hidden part of us – or maybe just them – that was still veiled, yet to be revealed. Those secrets could wait until a later day, though. For I just wanted it to be us, without any love or war tearing us apart.


End file.
